


Hero's Ballad

by verginix



Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Genre: Angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-28
Updated: 2019-01-27
Packaged: 2019-10-18 01:10:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 539
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17571461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/verginix/pseuds/verginix
Summary: Link adventures through Hyrule in Breath of the Wild. Will be mostly standalone ficlets. Implied Link/Zelda later on. Rated T for later chapters, just in case.





	Hero's Ballad

Link seeks out high places; they help him make sense of things. This new and much emptier world looks so deceptively like the one he died in 100 years ago. The bones of it are the same, but the facade is completely different.

He stands now at the top of the southern mountain of Dueling Peaks. From here, he can see the castle and the silhouette of the surrounding town and pretend that the people are still there going about their bustling days. The ones they talk about in the songs, the ones he’s seen in crumbling tapestries. The line at the butcher going out the door, the flower girls calling out for their wares in the street, roses, lilies, something else, all of it more beautiful and rare than even Silent Princess, they assure you. He doesn’t remember most of this himself, but he can feel the wrongness of the ruins wherever he goes. This place used to be alive, he used to be alive in it.

Link shivers. It’s beginning to snow. But he climbs to these peaks for the view as well as the cold; it helps bring him back to his body, makes him more aware of its extremities, its strengths and limitations. More limitations than strengths, these days, but the strengths are coming back. His muscles have more memory in them than his mind. There’s the timing in deflecting the shot of an Octorok in the forest which returned in a moment of panic. He was afraid he wouldn’t be able to repeat it when it came time to face the Guardians, but they were almost easier; a rock flying at you felt a lot more deadly than a beam of blue light, even if it wasn’t. Bows and arrows were simple, shields and spears and claymores, swords the easiest of all, but he has yet to find one that fits just right in his hand.

Behind Link are two little idols, a trough in front of each, an apple placed in one of the troughs. He knows that if he places an apple in the other a Korok will appear and give him a seed for Hestu, but he ate all his apples on the way up. He’ll just have to promise to come back. He hates to think of the Koroks waiting for him, all alone in hidden places.

The horizon takes on an orange edge. Link’s warming potion is beginning to wear off. He decides it’s time to warp to lower ground and get on with the adventure. He has more than Koroks waiting on him, after all. But just then a burst of gold appears in the sky among the dimming stars. Link watches it arc across the sky and splash down somewhere in the center of Hyrule Field, sending up a column of light at the landing site.

Link glances at the horizon again. There’s not much time to get the star before it’s gone. He moves to take out his Sheikah Slate, but something holds him back. Other stars will fall, but this sunrise promises to be a uniquely beautiful one.

He sits back down and lets the light wash over him. He’ll climb down when he’s ready.


End file.
